Lesson 2: Contour Lines, Texture and Construction
12:01 AM, Tuesday July 20th 2021
grateful to anyone who checks my homework :)
Hi Santy! Congratulations on completing lesson 2. I'm Gady and I'll be reviewing your work, so let's get to it.
Arrows:
Your linework looks smooth and confident for the most part. I think the main issue here is that you are being very shy with the size of your arrows. You're striving too much for them not to overlap, and this is counterproductive to the goal of the excercise. Look at the example page in the lesson and you'll see that all over the page you are supposed to overlap your arrows without much care. You're also making very thin arrows, and all in all avoiding overlapping lines, which makes it very hard to get the feel for depth in the flatness of the paper. Remember that the arrows need to get bigger and bigger as they go towards the viewer, and compress as they go further away. Both in size, and the spacing between each fold. Check these diagrams:
https://d15v304a6xpq4b.cloudfront.net/lesson_images/011d064f.jpg
https://d15v304a6xpq4b.cloudfront.net/lesson_images/0f7c806c.jpg
Another thing I noticed is that you have some troubles hatching the inner folds, and adding lineweight to those folds. https://drawabox.com/lesson/2/4/step4 this image shows how to apply lineweight properly. This is what subtle lineweight should look like: https://imgur.com/OHvr7Mb
Organic forms:
You did a good job at drawing your sausages as tubes connecting two spheres. However, ellipses are only drawn through once, instead of 2 or 3 times. This results in wobbly ellipses and therefore a flattened feel. Be also aware of the way the circles vary in angle as the sausage bends:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/368871256067670027/426350263884972032/IMG_5773.JPG
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/368871256067670027/426351743190695937/IMG_5775.JPG
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/368871256067670027/426351973990662144/IMG_5774.JPG
(photos by user 'Slate', and often linked by Optimus)
As for contours, I think you overdid it: you have to be careful to describe each form with just the necessary contour lines to understand it tridimensionally, not more and not less. Also in some of the sausages you have not curved the contours at the end, resulting in a flat look. I would also reccomend doing the sausages bigger, as this allows you to work from the shoulder easier, and thus avoid wobbly lines.
Texture Analysis:
I must point out that the main important thing here is actually drawing cast shadow shapes and not lines. Also you are supposed to draw only cast shadow shapes, and not any kind of form shading. Here's a diagram that explains the difference between those two: https://imgur.com/L21Mqxh
That being said, I think you're scratching lines too much. I think you kind of got the spirit of the excercise when inking the big black shapes on crumpled paper, but quickly lost your patience and started scratching randomly. When thinking about how to approach this, it's better to see cast shadows as closed shapes insted of as lines: https://i.imgur.com/M9JJfr4.png
Be aware that we are after implicit shapes, not explicit (https://d15v304a6xpq4b.cloudfront.net/lesson_images/7d1f3467.jpg) to make a transition. I would suggest, when approaching texture analysis, to be always looking at the reference, then making some marks, then looking again, not relying so much on your memory as it can trick you.
Dissections:
Pretty much the same things I pointed out for texture. To add up to that, I think you did good breaking the silhouettes, but were kind of shy: really go for this, as it gives A LOT of information to the viewer. https://d15v304a6xpq4b.cloudfront.net/lesson_images/4dd5336a.jpg
Some of your textures do wrap around the sausages, but in cases were they don't (human skin, goo, elephant skin) it leads to a flat shape. https://d15v304a6xpq4b.cloudfront.net/lesson_images/e58b7887.jpg
Form intersections:
Good job making the forms resemble they share the same scene, considering consistent foreshortening. However, I do want to point out you are still not drawing through your spheres and ellipses for cylinders and cones 2 or 3 times, and you tend to have some scratchy / wobbly lines in some of your boxes.
Organic intersections:
All in all, they look decent. Here the same observations I made for your contour sausages apply. Other than that, there's some randomly applied lineweight, be aware that you should only add lineweight where visible lines overlap with invisible ones. As for the shadows, I think the little marks you added to the tips are making the scene a little bit flatter, as this is not the way the sausages would cast shadows on the floor, but rather much more expansive.
Final thoughts
I think you have struggled with some of the main issues in this lesson, but overall you have come to complete it in a good way. You'll improve these things as you get more mileage, so I'll mark this lesson as complete.
Next Steps:
Go on with Lesson 3.
Also incorporate arrows and sausages to your daily warm-ups, and I would also suggest starting the 25 texture challenge, parallel to the lessons of the course (I do 1-3 textures every two-weeks).
Good luck!
ok gady, thanks for the critique, it was very helpful, i will keep doing the excercises and practicing my flaws, wish you luck ;)
You're very welcome, glad I coud be of help!
Here we're getting into the subjective - Gerald Brom is one of my favourite artists (and a pretty fantastic novelist!). That said, if I recommended art books just for the beautiful images contained therein, my list of recommendations would be miles long.
The reason this book is close to my heart is because of its introduction, where Brom goes explains in detail just how he went from being an army brat to one of the most highly respected dark fantasy artists in the world today. I believe that one's work is flavoured by their life's experiences, and discovering the roots from which other artists hail can help give one perspective on their own beginnings, and perhaps their eventual destination as well.
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